


Nothing to celebrate

by Jase



Series: Mindless drabbles [4]
Category: Emmerdale, robron
Genre: Husbands, Loneliness, M/M, Moving On, Realization, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 04:40:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21173576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jase/pseuds/Jase
Summary: It's Aaron's birthday and he's having none of it.





	Nothing to celebrate

The sun is out, the birds are chirping, and it's warmer than it should be considering the time of year, all in all it's what some people would consider a perfect day. Not Aaron though, it's everything he hates now a days. All he wants is to be left alone, especially at this exact day. There's nothing special about today, there's no reason to celebrate, there hasn't been a reason to celebrate in a long time. Not since…

His phone vibrates in his pocket, and he promptly sets what he was holding in his hand aside to answer it. As he pulls it free from his pocket, the screen lights up, a message from Liv.

_ HAPPY BIRTHDAY! _

The message reads, followed by heart emojis. She's been gone for a while now. Exploring in her own, now that she's 18 all she wants is her space, all she wants is to be independent, and she's enjoying Uni.

He replies with a simple "_ Thanks", _and places his phone back into his pocket. He takes a deep breath and reached back for what he was holding up, only his front door is opened, his mother unannounced barges in with what feels like half the village in tow, or in other words the rest of the Dingles. They're all in party hats, with cheerful faces to match, and they flow in carrying all sorts. Cake, beer, food, and presents all flow in and all he wants to do is scream.

"Happy birthday, luv" Chas beams as she leads the pack and quickly dives towards him, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. "Why don't you go up and wash up while we get everything ready." She tells him, though more like instructs him. It's what she does, what she always does, treats him like a child.

"For what?" He grunts in return.

"Your party, silly."

"I don't feel like it." He breathes out, exhausted. He's tired. Really tired. He doesn't have it in him to put up with anyone, with anything really. "Can you just please go back to wherever it is you came from." He looks around his mum, speaking to everyone. The smarter ones, Charity really, she seems to be the only one that gets him most of the time, begin to slowly walk back towards the door.

"Oh, I don't think so grumpy. It is your birthday today, and we are going to celebrate." She says placing her hands on her hips. "Now go on upstairs and get washed up." She still doesn't get it. She never will.

"I mean it. I'm not in the mood."

"Aaron, we went through a lot of trouble, now stop being difficult and get washed up." She says as she takes what he was holding out of his hands and throws it to the end table. 

"I said I'm not in the mood." He said through gritted teeth. "Now get out."

"Oi, don't talk to your mother like that." Paddy steps up, still putting on this front he thinks he can pull off, this tough guy act he's been putting up since he became a dad again.

"Celebrate?" Aaron scoffs. "What's to celebrate?" He laughs out, a smile spread across his face. Not a smile of joy but one of disbelief. After all this time they still don't get him, they still don't understand, or maybe they just don't care enough.

"Maybe we should just leave it, yeah?" Charity spoke up from the doorway. "Leave the birthday boy to his own, as he wishes." She nods her head towards the exit, signalling to everyone else.

"No." Chas holds up a finger towards Charity. "We went through a lot of trouble organizing this, and he needs to get over this slump." She stops everyone else from moving back towards the exit then turns her attention back to Aaron. "Come on, luv. This will be your first birthday with Eve, can't we just make it special for your little sister." Paddy nodded his head as he wrapped an arm around Chas and stood beside her.

That attitude again. The one that made Aaron feel so small. The one that made him realize some time ago, that they will never understand him, or anything else for that matter. It always made him feel like he himself didn't matter to them, like all that mattered was how he would affect them. They only cared when it affected them.

"I don't want to celebrate anything, there's nothing to fucking celebrate." He finally shouted and it felt like he could breathe again. That anger, that pain, he'd been holding onto it for so long, and it had been clawing to get out. "How can I celebrate anything when my only reason for celebrating isn't here with me!"

"Luv, you need to get over him. You need to move on." Chas tried to move towards him, only he stopped her as he took a step back.

"Get over him." Again he laughed with disbelief. "You still don't get it do ya? There is no getting over him, there is no getting over the only thing in my life that ever made sense." His voice broke.

"You deserve better, Aaron." Paddy spoke up.

"All he ever did was cause you trouble. Everything he did, he did for himself. He was selfish through and through."

And laughter was all that escaped his mouth. "Selfish...Robert?" He finally spoke after a minute. "Yeah, maybe at first, but he was the most selfless person out of the family, fuck out of the fucking village."

"You know that's not true." Chas immediately countered. "In the end, he only went down out of guilt, he went down to make sure his conscience was clear. All he cared about was himself."

"That's rich coming from you. The mother who couldn't deal with her son, leaving him with his monster of a father." His voice was like venom now. He'd held back for far too long, held back long enough to really see everyone for what they really where. He aimed where he knew it would hurt, where he knew it would make her think. And it hurt, that much was clear from the horrified look on her face.

"How dare you?" Paddy stepped forward. "How dare you throw that in her face. How long have you been holding onto that to throw it in her face."

"I dunno, maybe about as long as you were holding on to me beating you up, you know before you threw it in my face, in front of my little sister." He shot right back. Mental abuse, is what his counselor called it. The way his family had practically shamed him for feeling the devastation after losing his soulmate, his reason for living. They had guilted him into staying, into not doing anything rash, and yeah though it had been stupid to even think he could do what he had planned, what they had done to him was even worse. They made him hide away within himself. They made him pretend he was alright, that he had gotten through it. He hid his pain, his grief, his loneliness, and it slowly ate away at him, simply because it affected them. Because they couldn't deal with him doing something stupid, because they didn't want his devastation to ruin their moment of happiness.

"You what?" Chas turned to Paddy in disbelief.

"I may have forgiven you for that Paddy, but I didn't forget. I'll never forget." He was done holding back. The family that always claimed to love him, to oy care about his well being, never cared enough to see his real pain, never cared enough to simply support him and be there for him when he needed them. All they wanted was for him to be there for them. For the longest time it killed him to think of how Robert's family had failed him, and now he could see how his own was no better. "Thank you though." He added. "Thank you all for helping me to see things clearly."

"Aaron?"

"Now I can see that you lot never really accepted me and Robert. That after everything you still think so little of him, when in fact he cared more about me than anyone of you all, and enough of this selfish thing. You all sound like a broken record." He swallowed hard past the lump in his throat. "He's the only person that ever put me before anything, including his own happiness, his own life. He's the only person that ever truly loved me."

By this point Charity had had enough sense to have left, same with Cain, while the rest of the family hung by the door looking like they wanted to argue, the only thing that kept them from interfering was the resolve in Aaron's voice. "Now can you just get out!"

Without further words Chas and Paddy retreat. For once in their lives they are truly speechless, for once in a long time they see pain that Aaron is, they see the grief, and they see how much damage they have caused.

With everyone gone, he can finally breathe, he can finally let go. He quickly heads for the end table and picks up what he had been holding on to. The card is old, a bit tattered around the edges, but it holds. He smiles for the briefest of seconds as he looks it over. On the front of the card is an image, one that most people wouldn't understand. A ghoulish looking figure with a few scraggly strands of hair sticking out of it's head displays. Gollum. _ My precious _, it reads on the front side. As he opens it card a single tear drops from his eye. 

_ Happy Birthday _

_ Love, R _

An old birthday card from Robert. He never told Robert he kept it. He gently runs his fingertips across writing and finally let's it out, no longer afraid to be heard. He sobs and he wonders what Robert's doing, how he's been, and if he ever things about him. Like a knife to the heart, it hurts. It hurts no knowing anything about him. It hurts to think of him as nothing but a memory. He hasn't heard from him in so long, he doesn't even know where he's located it. The last he heard from Robert's solicitor before all communication was cut from him, Robert had been transferred to another prison. The news had broken him, even worse was the fact that he wasn't told which one. Everything hurts now. Everything reminds him of the love of his life. It's all too much and he needs to get out. He needs to leave. There's nothing left him there.

Whatever happens, wherever he goes, he knows only one thing, he'll never forget the one person that made him whole, and he'll keep hoping that one day he will see him again.


End file.
